Today I’m going to take you on a garden walk. I shot the video last week, and already wish I could show you how the garden looks this week. There’s been so many changes!
The cucumbers have now almost reached the top of the trellis and the Minnesota Midget Melons are all climbing.
We’ve had a lot of rain in the last week and not much sunshine, but the garden doesn’t seem to be suffering too much.
I hope you enjoyed the peek at our garden. Follow the link below to learn more about the old bean variety we got from The Deer Hunter’s friend.
Ever Hear of a Yonce Bean? How about a Young Prince Bean?
Tipper
Subscribe for FREE and get a daily dose of Appalachia in your inbox
Are your squash getting pollinated? They will fall off if there’s not a male flower blooming at the same time as the female flower. If you have at least one male flower you can hand pollinate the females.
Your garden tour was fun! We had problems with plants looking yellow, and did more fertilizing than we’ve ever done to get things looking right and growing well. I like the raised beds. We’re moving to a mulched garden; we’ve done it for the past two years and have mulched the main garden again. Next year we won’t plow or till, but will just pull the mulch back to plant, and add more mulch. We’ll see how it works!
I thoroughly enjoyed the tour!
Please update us as the summer progresses.
Purslane is also know as pigweed. Pigs love it. I’ve tried it. I liked it but I like pork more so I let it grow and then fed to the pigs.
When I was growing up we practically raised pigs on weeds, corn and table scrapes. In the dead of winter we might have to buy a bag or two of shorts to supplement their diet. Shorts are a byproduct of the milling of wheat.
Hi Tipper….I loved the walk thru your garden it was super…..you have a beautiful garden and thank-you for sharing it with us. My favorite fruit is blueberries….we picked them wild in the fields …tedious chore but oh the beautiful blueberry pies!! Tks. again. Happy Gardening.
It was so nice to walk around with ya in your garden…… looks great . Loved looking ,listening, learning.
Loved taking your garden tour. I have some of the same problems you have with yellowing plants. I planted in raised beds for my first time this year. In one of my beds some of my peppers are yellow and ones right beside it are a beautiful green and larger. I used fresh mulch too and added fertilizer and lime. I suppose it was added unevenly, but I will experiment and add some nitrogen and lime to those plants. In another bed my beans are really looking good. Problem with the beans an Aunt gave them to me 9 years ago and I put them in the freezer without writing down the name and now my Aunt has passed on. My Egyptian Spinach has come up and it looks nothing like your Malibar spinach. If mine turns out to be good eating I’ll let you know and hope you do the same. Oh yeah, I too planted an oriental persimmon.
Tipper,
My brain must not be working today. In my comment, in the 2nd paragraph and in the last sentence, I said Myrtle Solesbee instead of Myrtle Younce, Jesse’s wife. Sorry about that! …Ken
What a treat to see your garden & hear you tell about it! We finally got ours planted and it’s doing pretty well–we always have trouble with a disease of some kind that makes the leaves get spots. Last year we used hydrogen peroxide water to treat it but this year we are using a commercial treatment. Hope it works–I’m dying for some fresh vegetables!
Tipper,
Thank you for the tour thru your garden. At the Garden Party a few years ago, I can see why my Girls had you between them. They hadn’t heard you speak, ever, and it’s nice to have someone talk just the same.
When Jesse Allen from Burnesville brought me some Half Runners, he said those bean seeds had come from his wife’s family and they had re-planted them for over a hundred years or so. His wife was Myrtle Solesbee and she was born and raised in Nantahala.
I was watching the Fox Channel and The President and his wife Celebrated Korean War Veterans. My oldest brother was 80 when he Died, he was in that War.
I remember as a kid neighbors and friends coming by during gardening season and invariably someone would invite them to “go look at the garden”. People were as proud of their gardens then as much as they are their cars and houses now. If you had a pretty garden it didn’t matter what your house looked like. Of course few people had cars in our area.
Your garden is a jewel! I would love to walk around with you “just any old time”!
Ed, you shore made me think of my Dad. He was a very good gardener and often showed me his garden. If something wasn’t growing to suit him he would plow it up and plant over. My Father-In-Law was the same way and always showed me his garden.
What a delightful way to start the day. A tour of a beautiful WNC moutain garden. Of course, it is akin to pouring salt into a fresh wound to an ol’ mountain boy stuck down here in Fort Mill SC.
Two quick comments:
1st; I agree with all the other replies concerning the end rot and yellowing leaves. Short term, have Matt bring home a couple of bags of lime and side dress all tomatoes, melons, etc. Long term, get some soil samples to the county agent.
2nd; How much of a yield will the bean patch produce? Enough for a canning run or two?
Doug-thanks for the suggestion! We usually have three rows of beans, so this is the first year we’ve only had two, but we typically can about 40 quarts of greenbeans. It’ll be interesting to see if we miss that third row. I’m hoping the better trellising method helps the beans be more productive.
That is an amazing weed-free garden. Mine has been tilled twice in a month and I hoe at least once a week and still have weeds. For you gardeners who have not tried the cheap woven deer fence, it is the best $20 you will ever spend. In my case, I had to buy three 100′ x 7′ rolls to enclose my garden. Now I don’t have to worry about my melons having bunny bites or the deer eating my beans and corn.
Mom used to dump the stove ashes in her garden as well. She also used ashes to keep the bugs off her tater vines.
I have never had a garden and we are not really allowed to have one due to HOA restrictions, but I love some of your ideas! You have inspired me to plan for some bush plants like blueberries. I have also always wanted to grow pumpkins to give to neighborhood kids. As always, thank you for sharing!
Love your tour of your garden. Looks likes you all gonna be busy this year. You have alot of stuff and I hadnt heard of the plants you talk about. We have gotten alot of squash out of ours. A few cucumbers so far. Thanks Tipper.
I usually get my cup of coffee and head to my computer to read your blog first thing in the morning after i get dressed. It was really a treat to go along with you on tour of your garden. My goodness, you have a huge garden and looks like you will be really busy come harvest time. I think I mentioned before in some comment that my son had put two planters off our patio/ They stand about 3 feet tall and are only about 3 feet long by 1 1/2 feet wide but are producing like crazy. He planted two tommy toes, lettuce, cucumber, yellow squash and zucchini. I am in south central PA and my little tomatoes are full of tiny green soon red:) I have been eating yellow squash from my plant for two weeks now and the zucchini is just starting to produce wee ones. Also my cucumber plant has wee cucumbers climbing right now and I am thrilled every time I go out and check them. It is wonderful to just go out your back door and pick some salad, etc., for lunch or supper. Thanks again for taking us on a tour of your beautiful garden!!!
Tipper, I really enjoyed your garden tour!! I have some Cherokee Purples growing in 5 gallon buckets on my small flat bed trailer with some other things. Do you think a 5 gallon bucket is a big enough container for one Cherokee Purple?
John-Thanks! I do think a 5 gallon bucket is big enough for one plant. You’ll still have to stake it somehow as it grows, but it should do just fine 🙂
I guess all of us gardeners have a lot in common; never enough room, a mix of tradition and experimentation, stories about seeds and plants, anticipation, nature puzzles and optimism. Any tour of my garden would sound much the same but you all grow more than I do. Your garden is so neat and clean. Reminds me of how some of the old timers would have been embarassed if a passer-by could see weeds in their garden.
I’m just like you about the volunteers. I really hate to waste them. I mostly let them grow wherever they show up if I can. I have potatoes scattered all over. This year I carted compost dirt and filled up stump holes after the stumps had been ground. The dirt came from where we throw out our scraps and now I have tomatoes in each of the stump holes. No idea what kind though. I’ll just let them grow and see what happens.
After your post about plum grannies I ordered seed from Southern Exposure Seed. It came from Mineral, VA and took about a week but anyway when it came I planted one hill by one of my garden gates. I hope to train it on the fence.
Your cucumber is way ahead of me. I have only bloom so far. I grow only the pickling cucumber because I think it has the best taste.
I need to get some ground cherry seed. My Grandma had those scattered all through her garden and she tended some of them just as if she had planted them. I like the little gold-colored ones but she had some big purple-green ones that had a brassy taste I never learned to like.
If you ever decide to grow basil, I think it does better in part shade than in full sun. The leaves are much bigger. It is a fairly reliable self-seeder. You all would like it I think on your home baked pizza. Two plants are a gracious plenty.
That was a wonderful tour, Tip. I think it is just amazing what you all have done on the side of the mountain there. You and the Deer hunter have done such a good job and the cattle panels were a really big help in maximizing your space.
I really look forward to those Cherokee Purple tomatoes to ripen…they are my favorite and you always share with me.
Wood chip mulch has never been my friend. It draws slugs and bugs. It brings termites too. I can tell you’ve gardened a lot and concur with your findings, guru of the garden. I did learn some stuff like about the end rot so I thank you and reread your post several times. Thanks for sharing cause I’m learning!
I LOVED LOVED LOVED your garden video this morning! It’s a beautiful place and the work your family puts into the garden is showing! I think it’s SPECTACULAR! I also enjoyed hearing you speak and that’s a definite uniquely NC accent you have. It takes me back to being stationed at Fort Bragg many years ago where I first heard and loved that Tarheel accent! I love many wonderful things about and the people of North Carolina! BTW, you’ve changed your acidity of soil by adding ashes. Spreading them around is a good idea to amend your pH. Meters are available and affordable for pH checking. You simply stick it in the dirt and POW there’s your reading.
What are you using for ground cover in your garden? Looks like wood chips, how do you keep your garden so weed free?
Or do you weed by hand or other?
Always learning new things, I enjoyed the travel in your garden.
Toni-LOL battling weeds is the worst part of gardening! We use wood chips in the paths and that helps, but there’s still a lot of weeding to do. The Deer Hunter prefers to use a hoe to weed with, I usually hand weed. So glad you enjoyed the walk 🙂
The tour was great. It looks like so much work. How wonderful when everything starts to produce. How do you keep up with it all?
Gayle-thank you! When things start to come in its all hands on deck to get it preserved for the winter. Although the work is tiring, its fun to put up stuff together and so rewarding to see all the jars sitting on my canning shelves 🙂
Tipper–I’ll share some thoughts on a few of your problems or things I observed from your delightful garden tour.
*The rot at the end of your candy roasters is likely blossom end rot. It’s most common with tomatoes but occurs in various types of squash as well. It’s likely in your case that it was weather-related (the May cold) but a lack of calcium in the soil will also cause it, and so will poor pollination (the latter is most common in wet weather).
*Speaking of soil, a lot of the plants in the video appeared to me to have a bit of a yellowish tint, and you comment on that at some point. It can be soil imbalance, too much rain, or toll little rain (among other things). In your case, I would strongly recommend getting your soil tested or buying a home kit and doing it yourself. Also, I notice you are using a lot of mulch which appears to be new woods chips. Rotting chips take a lot out of the soil (especially nitrogen) and it is best to set wood chips aside in a big pile and let them rot for three or four years before using in the garden.
*The bites coming out of just ripening melons are likely from turtles (or terrapins as I’ve always called them). They can do a world of damage in this regard. They’ll also eat tomatoes they can reach.
*I wouldn’t recommend cutting the transplanted asparagus this year. Giving it a year to get strongly established will pay dividends down the road.
*Make sure your Oriental persimmon is self-pollinating. Most but not all kinds are. You’ll be tickled with it, I think. My two trees (really more like big bushes) had over two bushels of fruit last year.
*There are literally dozens of varieties of blueberries and thanks to birds having given me “extras” all over my place I’ve long since given up trying to decided what’s what. They all bear and all are delicious.
*Finally, I’m envious of all your fine work with support fencing. It’s neat and will in the long run work much better than my wire and string method for pole beans, etc.
I really enjoyed the tour.
Jim Casada
Jim-Thanks for all the tips! We have never gotten around to having the soil tested, but something we should definitely do. I remembered you telling me the persimmon trees could be self pollinating so that’s the kind he got 🙂 I only hope it does as well as yours!
Your garden looks good.
Blossom end rot will hit mellons like tomatoes also, you can look it up on the tube several gardeners show you what to do, I’ve had one tomato plant with it this year and treated it and so far so good.